Featured Artists

At AKIN, we find it important to celebrate underrepresented narratives. Our Featured section includes a roster of various talented artists, musicians, and innovators of color who have agreed to share their original works and projects here.

Chasing Colors Project

AKIN collaborates with Gerrie Lim, the photographer and mastermind behind the Chasing Colors Project. Learn about the artist’s South Carolina background and how photography helped them realize the “half nude white woman” ascetic relates to the system of racism in America. Gerrie hopes to transcend the P.O.C. community by using people of color as their primary subjects in their storytelling.Find the Chasing Colors Project on Instagram: @chasingcolorsproject

PALOMA MARTINEZ-MIRANDA

Akin’s first visual artist, Paloma Martinez-Miranda, sits down with us eating dumplings while discussing how art keeps her connected to her cultural roots. Featuring her work “ideal spaces / memory palaces” - a collection that has us reimagine how we see food as culture, food as intimacy, and food as vulnerability.

MARTINA SAN DIEGO

Ruthie sits with singer-songwriter Martina San Diego to discuss San Diego’s beginnings as an artist, her relationship with her Filipina identity, and how that contributed to the growth and insight between her EPs Blank Walls and Illuminate.

THIS IS OURS

AKIN's founder Ruthie Ofrasio bring her storytelling talents in her spoken original, "This is OURS." Ofrasio digs deep to bring another voice for the empowerment for women, people of color, and other underrepresented stories. This work also won her the 2017 Ms. Philippines pageant.

AKIN Short: “Regards, Mathilda Chua”

Singaporean actress Mathilda Chua has an important message for the entertainment industry. Too often do directors hire people to perform a character role that is not in line with the actor/actress's cultural heritage. In reading her letter, Mathilda hopes to dismantle the microaggression that groups of different Asian heritages together as "one" and the "same" and promote authenticity when it comes to character casting.

CRYSTAL YU

AKIN is proud to present the multi-media artist, Crystal Yu. In her two photo sets, it is clear that her style is highly conceptual and experimental in order to call out predisposed expectations of what it means to be an Asian-American woman.

TINA YAO

HAPA MAG

"I hope that you find our quarterly magazine fun, informative and full of our unique perspectives. Hapa isn't just a word to describe someone who is half-Asian. Here at Hapa Mag, “Hapa" means community, tribe, a place where there is love and freedom to be you!" -Alex Chester

JOHN MARK OFRASIO

In John Mark Ofrasio’s TedxTalk at East Brunswick, he discusses his inspiration from the various advocates in both history and the present. In doing so, he wishes to combine his love for the arts with his activist ambition to make a change in the world.